Posts Tagged ‘Anne Ferro’

Let’s talk about fun stuff for a change!

I made it to the “Mid-America Truck Show” in Louisville Kentucky and had the good fortune to meet Ingrid Brown whilst I was tweeting away in the Papa John’s parking lot.

Ingrid received a 3 Million Mile award out of 14 others by FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro at the Salute to Women behind the Wheel. She began driving as an Owner-Operator in 1979 and still has the 1979 Diamond Reo her daddy bought her. She says it still sits in her driveway and runs like a charm!

Ingrid says she owes her gratitude to her Daddy & Brother, she is from North Carolina.

I also got to meet Sandi Talbott who also started in 1979, she leased to Cargill Meats, she is 69 years young and she is from Texas. Sandi was also a 3 Million Mile recipient. We spoke in the parking lot about the need for more informationto help new women entering trucking and the need for better communication.

Sandi shared some wisdom to pass along to women which is that you need to understand you are being watched out here so if you are friendly by nature that can be misconstrued in the world of trucking so you must keep your eyes open to your surroundings.

These gals are driving and not on the internet as much. It’s good to know they are out here and they care very much about helping others.

These are the women who should be recognized but we probably won’t get to see them much because the nature of this job is being isolated.

It was a thrill to see the ladies at this salute receive awards and hear the speech given by FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro.

Writer Linda Sands was present and she was able to meet and photograph women truckers for an upcoming book.

You can catch up with Linda Sands and Gwen Morrison on facebook by becoming a FAN of MODERN TRUCK DRIVERS

I have to thank Ingrid because she didn’t know me from adam but struck up a conversation with me and offered me her coat when I was cold to keep until the next day. I did not know she was to top honoree at the Salute to Women behind the Wheel & after getting to speak to her and hearing about her career plus her wonderful attitude I feel honored to be at the right place at the right time!

Technorati Tags: Anne Ferro, Truckers, Trucking, Women

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BRING IT ON
– Who is responsible for Sexual Harassment Training?

Let’s face it, Women are naïve and add a good amount of pride they sometimes do things which get them into some bad situations.

I had hoped to complete a post called “The Wild West” which examines the similarity of the American West and Trucking with regards to the introduction of Women but I was distracted yet again.

Sweeping things under the rug just makes a big lump in the rug. Eventually, people trip some may fall and others might try to sue! Some legal action may be warranted from that lump of dirt but leaving it there makes it visible to others who might see an opportunity for a frivolous lawsuit.

When is it time to pull that rug outside? Sweep the dirt out, shake it and beat it with a broom? After the first lawsuit? 10, 20? 265?

I worked at Disneyland and boy people sure want to sue them. Some folks save all year, sometimes a few years to take the family on the great American Road Trip to see Mickey. The reality check comes when they arrive & Goofy does not open the front doors for them and they have to walk a mile from the parking area to the hotel with all the kids screaming to go potty.

Enter the Hotel Lobby to see 800 other families with screaming kids who are hungry, hot and come to find out Pluto does not swim in the pool like he does on your brochure, your room is not ready and it will be several hours because the 800 families who came last week have not checked out yet. OH BOY! Guess who gets yelled at?

There are a number of things going on in the scenario above:
1. High Stress Level
2. Disoriented Environment
3. Miscommunication
4. Misleading Advertising
5. Being Naïve

Who has the power to control of this situation? This is where good training comes into play when things get heated.

I use this “G” rated example to lead into truck driver training purposely because I see the same thing with Women entering this industry who have been misled from advertising and recruiters to think its one big party to be a trucker.

I see recruiting techniques that advertise both trucking jobs targeting women and “Date a Trucker” on the very same sites. I see job placement agencies encouraging “Displaced Homemakers” who are Women who have maintained a household for many years and for whatever reason are now unmarried and have little or no job skills.

Enter Job Placement recruiters who offer a free voucher to pay for CDL School making light of the REAL work required to become successful in this industry.

While it’s true that anyone with the ability to listen and learn can become a trucker in my opinion there are other elements to this job that Women may not be prepared for.

I’ve covered the obvious in many of my other posts but let’s talk about some other scenarios:

A Woman recently Divorced after 25 years of Marriage has little experience and is encouraged to go to CDL School from her Unemployment Office. She gets a good Male trainer and he teaches her everything she needs to know. She begins to romanticize about his concern for her learning. He does not make a pass at her but this makes her like him even more. She initiates sex and wrongly assumes they will ride off into the sunset together. At the end of her training period she assumes they will drive as a team together but he has no intentions of running as a team. She is hurt and angry and feels used. He goes to pick up another female student and she becomes angry and reports him for harassment.

Was she naïve? Yes
Who is in control here? Both of them
Who is the professional here? He is, he is the teacher, she is the student. Proper training for him would help him recognize the situation he was about to get himself into and get her off his truck before it got out of hand.

Anyone from a corporate environment who has had Sexual Harassment Training has learned this but it does not exist in trucking yet increased recruitment of Women does. See a potential problem?

Who knows trucking?

Even a street smart gal gets her heart broken from getting too caught up in a tryst. Let’s face it ladies, trucking provides a lot of anonymity and that’s a big attraction for a “player” OR someone who thought “YOU” understood it was fun while it lasted.

But let’s get back to “Street Smarts”:

1. Street Law is this: “You Snitch, You Die”

Anyone who has ever been around gangs knows that if you join a girl gang there are only 2 ways to get “initiated”.
1. A gang bang , sometimes watched by other girls in the gang
2. Beat in, where the others literally beat the shit out of you.

In some gangs it is perfectly acceptable to share, sell or trade women amongst gang members with other woman watching and sometimes participating. Is that what Women in the Trucking Industry mean when they say you need “Street Smarts” to be successful in the trucking industry?

Then there are those really “Tough Girls” who think they are “One of the Boys” … Guess what… “YOU are NEVER one of the boys”! I don’t care if you dress, talk, walk or act like a boy, your males buddies are wondering what it would be like to have sex with you and may have discussed it with their friends when you walked out of earshot, and sometimes NOT in a good way.

Some of the toughest bitches I know have been raped because they thought they were “One of the Boys”, got drunk with Guys who were as tough as them who they thought were just like brothers to them.

The “Tough Girl”, “The Woman Scorned” and the “Rolling Cathouse”, all Women, all part of the trucking industry and every other industry as well.

Professionalism, Training and Self-Control alleviates much of this mess.

In my US Xpress comments on the original post I mentioned my conversation with a former Driver/Trainer who told me when he was assigned a Women to train he brought his Wife to meet her. After 30 minutes, his Wife would determine if she was here to Work OR Play. He told me that many times she took him aside and said “If you let her on your truck you will be getting Divorce papers!” He was happy to report he is still married. He no longer trains women at all because the quality of female recruits to trucking has declined and he began to fear for his life and his marriage.

That is the result of misleading advertising directed at Women entering Trucking.

Lack of suitable female trainers? You can refer again to poor recruiting tactics and lack of support from in-house staff. Recruiting Truck Drivers and portraying dating ads only complicates the issue further.

Again, this is an overall industry failure. Recruiting Naïve people has always been a tactic as far as I can tell but this time it’s biting back. Covering up , blaming the student. Who is in the power position?

Consider this scenario:

Single Woman attends orientation. No money, arrives on greyhound with all her belongings in boxes. Safety department person observes her acting giddy and follows her to her motel room. He was formerly in law enforcement in the same city where she is unfamiliar with her surroundings. He drops his pants and tells her to perform oral sex. She refuses but it is clear he will be her superior at this company.

Who do you believe?
The homeless woman who was joking around the night before with “The Guys”?
OR
The former law enforcement professional who is now a safety director at a large truck carrier?

Was he watching her the whole time and knew she was a perfect target because of how “outgoing” she was?

Did she “Bring it on”, Does “She deserve it”?

There are still many guys who think getting laid means getting a girl drunk and hoping she passes out so they can screw her. There are still plenty of Women who believe she “deserves it” and would not step up and speak out.

There are many naïve women and manipulative women who will make false allegations to harm someone but it takes two to “tango”.

Are Women Truckers expected to go to Charm School prior to CDL training?

Additional Reading:
Ethics: When falling in Love falls out of bounds

Stanford University Sexual Harassment Policy Online

Technorati Tags: Anne Ferro, Ellen Voie, Sexual Harassment, Trainers, Truckers, Trucking, Women

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Welcome to REAL Women in Trucking, this site is to disseminate FREE Information to help keep you Safe and Informed without judging your personal self or lifestyle.

It is the result of a campaign by Industry Spokewomen to cover up, discredit , repackage and take credit for the obstacles that have been overcome by REAL Women Truckers.

At this time, there is No Guidance by Trucking Industry Leaders to make Enforcement of Federal Laws a Priority with regards to Women. At the same time, Women are being heavily recruited into the Trucking Industry and the internet is full of misleading ads, charlatans and carpetbaggers who seek to benefit from recruitment but do not want to address personal safety unless they can make a buck off it.

Change is coming , but until then it’s really up to YOU to know who and what the obstacles are and find your own way around them.  This may not be so easy if you are just entering the trucking industry. The nice lady in the office might not really be inclined to assist you. The nice organization you buy a membership for may not care about little ole YOU. The structure may be so large that even people who want to help are forbidden to share inside info.

Even with all the good and bad advice you can gather, you will have to rely on your own good judgment, and sometimes this might get you in trouble. This site is about telling you the Truth.

Trucking is good if you are adaptable, don’t mind not being able to shower every day, can be away from home for long periods of time.

To survive your first couple years you should have no overhead, no car or rent to pay, otherwise you will be stressed out and that is no way to learn. Do Not Believe ADS or Recruiters, their objective is to get a commission; they could care less about your success. Also, you must realize many trucking organizations exist to further confuse and are actually a front for a recruitment machine and even insurance sales.

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people – Eleanor Roosevelt

The method to confuse truckers and new trucking students is so prevalent that personal attacks should be your first red flag that a collaborative cover up exists. Complacency and vague answers are another clue. Retaliation for speaking out in trucking is legendary.

This is why there are No Memberships & No Forums where you have to include your personal information. This is a place for you to gather information and not be attacked.

We are proud to say we have made the topic of Harassment “HIP” to discuss on many Trucking sites. This is due in part to the Dan Rather Report Series into Trucking. The four part series is based on CLUES Desiree Wood provided to discuss topics she saw as a civilian entering trucking.  Desiree Wood wrote about her experiences from CDL School and as a Student at Covenant Transport. The show titles are “Queen of the Road”, “Truck Talk”, “Mind Your Loan Business” & “Haul or High Water” they can be viewed by going to the iTunes Store and Searching up “Dan Rather Reports”, each episode is $1.99.

 The story is on the web site “Ask the Trucker” and it is called “A Day in the Life of a Lady Trucker”. To read it in its entirety you must first scroll to the bottom of the comments and click the link that says “Read all ### Comments”, then they drop down from top to start the beginning of the post.

The back-story and commentary of cover-up are on the “Trucker Desiree” site.

The desired effect in writing these posts was to prompt action, awareness and it is working as more drivers both men and women are coming forward to talk about this longtime problem which is an abuse of power.

As we come together to form unity among Male and Female truck drivers, it also clear WHO is NOT unifying but rather seeking to divide. This is how we can begin to determine who may benefit from covering up abuse and misconduct.

There are tons of tools for corporate training, certainly no one in the trucking industry needs to reinvent the wheel BUT enforcement is an issue. Retaliation is an issue. The endless articles and media campaigns for solutions cannot fix this problem if there is no guidance at the very tippity top.

That’s where our Media Savvy comes in.

Women Truckers have proven they CAN competently do the job of Trucking for a number of years.  The First Licensed Female Truck Driver was “Lillie Elizabeth Drennan” who received her license in 1929.  Doing the job is not the problem though.

While luxuries such as Private Showers have advanced, some of the situations have remained the same, such as the topics in this 1976 Article in TIME Magazine about “Bitsy” Gomez, The Sexes-Women Truckers

Fast Forward to 2009 when CRST Van Expedited had the upper hand on the EEOC in a case that began with 265 Females Truckers reporting various degrees of abuse. The case was reduced to 35 and then dismissed because the EEOC was unable to file it properly but thankfully the Judge left to door open for an appeal with her comments given in the opinion that the cases have “Meritorious Credit”, some cases were settled out of court by the lucky few Women who could afford a private attorney.

The appeal for the CRST Sex Harassment Cased was filed on November 30, 2009, you can read more about it by clicking HERE , Should this appeal fail the taxpayers will be left to pay the enormous $4.5 Million in attorney fees.

 This should make every American very angry and take action to see these government funded trucking companies continue to do more of the same and use high powered law firms to sweep their dirt under the rug.

Another recent case involves Prime and brings up number of other questions in this debate forum about how far behind the Trucking Industry is when it come to seeing the “Big Picture” ahead as more Women show the desire to become Truckers. Read the Prime Judgment and Opinions HERE

Now that we have Anne Ferro as FMCSA Administrator maybe we can get more people to listen to REAL Women in Trucking and have a shot for a REAL change, not just a smoothed over version.

More Female Trainers is only part of the Solution, better training for all with check and balances to eliminate the abusive system both in-house and inside the industry. Perhaps an aggressive outside Human Rights Group might help the Trucking Industry wake up and smell the Organic Coffee.

I’m inviting you to make your voice heard and if you don’t like change then just sit back and enjoy the ride baby!

REMEMBER: “Well behaved Women rarely make History” ~ Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

All are invited to Become a FAN of REAL Women Truckers on Facebook:

“REAL Women In Trucking”

Technorati Tags: Anne Ferro, Covenant Transport, CRST, Dan Rather, FMCSA, Prime, Sex, Sexual Harrassment, Truckers, Trucking, Women

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• Ellen Voie answers questions about the CRST Sexual Harassment case Part III (21)